Tarnished Silver
by Ramenth
Summary: Owning an Antique Shop can have... unique hazards. Especially when it comes to the mail. August 2009 Fic-a-day Contest Entry
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Neither The Dresden Files nor Buffy belong to me.

AN: This was written for a Fic a Day contest last summer. It's not doing me any good sitting on my computer though; I might as well subject random people stupid enough to click it to it. It's not horrible, but, not what I'd call great either.

**Tarnished Silver  
**

"Hello? "Mom? I got the mail!" My voice echoed hollowly in the empty house. Ever since we'd moved to Sunnydale this had become a more and more regular thing.

"Guess you're not home." I sighed and dropped the mail on the kitchen table before glancing through the leftovers in the fridge and finally deciding on the spaghetti from earlier in the week. What? Don't look at me like that. School was long. I was hungry. I set the microwave to warm up the pasta and turned back to the mail.

"Well well, what have we here?" I asked the top package. It was a small one, well wrapped in brown packing paper and addressed to the Summers family from a sender I didn't recognize. Chances are it was another thing for the gallery; for some reason a lot of people ship to our house, rather than directly. But, then again, this was addressed to the Summers family. I could— BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

I jumped as the microwave beeped. Food now, package later. Somehow spaghetti always tastes better as leftovers. Mmm. Italian-y goodness. I turned back to the package as I happily munched on the spaghetti and took a closer look at it. It was too small to be the sort of thing Mom normally sold; you know, art and that sort of thing. Maybe it wasn't for the gallery after all?

I set the bowl down on the sink and picked the package back up. It couldn't hurt to open it, could it? I mean, it _was_ addressed to the Summers family, not Mom, or the Gallery. I slipped a finger under the paper and pulled. Slayer Strength: 1, Over-Zealous US Postal Service Wrapping: 0. Unsurprisingly, under the paper was a box.

I opened that too; revealing packing peanuts that concealed… another box. Great. This was starting to feel like one of those Russian-doll things. You know, the ones with the other dolls in side them? After a few more layers I finally reached the actual package; a small black jewelry style box. At this point I was pretty sure that it was for the gallery, but after all this work I felt entitled to opening it and taking a peek.

Inside the box was a tarnished and rather battered looking silver coin. Not quite what I'd expected; Mom usually sells more… artistic things than coins. She runs a galley after all, not an antique shop. It looked like something Giles would have, really. It was old, the face was worn, but I doubted I would've recognized it anyway. Someone had carved something into it, a strange twisting sigil that was darker than the tarnish. I didn't recognize the symbol, but that was more Willow or Giles thing anyway.

I had to admit it was pretty; it could work as a necklace or something like that. I was pretty sure I even had an outfit that matched… Hm. Well, it was addressed to us. I'm sure Mom won't mind if I—

"Buffy, are you home?"

I snapped the box shut and spun around. "Yeah, Mom, I'm in the Kitchen!"

"You're home early today,"

"Yeah, well, you know how it is. But look! Mail!" I pointed to the messy pile I'd left on the table.

"Anything interesting, Hun?"

"Just stuff for the Gallery."

"Again? I've told them to stop sending it here. What is it this time?"

"Some coin."

"Well, whatever. I'll tell them again. Help me with the groceries?"

"Sure," I followed Mom out into the fading afternoon sun, all thoughts of the coin forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

The Fallen, Azshariel, smirked as she lay back within the confines of her prison. Finding the slayer had been laughably easy, and arranging for her former host to meet an unfortunate ending hadn't been much harder. Yes, Jack Corrain had potential when he'd taken up the coin in the late forties. What a shame he hadn't lived up to it. She'd taken control and adjusted his will accordingly, sending the coin to the slayer after he passed. It had been a pet project of hers since she'd first learned of the slayer in the 1860's. As long as the council raised them getting a coin into one of their hands was impossible.

And then had come Buffy Summers: a Slayer outside the council's control. A few favors called in with old friends and she'd learned all she needed. The new slayer was green; completely. The council hadn't even found her until after she'd been called for a week. It was perfect, assuming she managed to live long enough.

Three months in and one impressive foe down, the Slayer had moved to suburbia, where her mother opened a gallery. It was almost too easy; there was even a reason for the sending the coin now. Three weeks later her former host was dead at her own hand, and the coin was on its way.

The plan itself was simple, so much so that Azshariel could scarcely believe that none of the other Denarians had thought of it, though the way they clung to hosts perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising. A coin in an envelope; even if the target was aware of what a coin was, who would look carefully enough before the emptied it? And since one didn't need to know just what a coin was when they took it up, well, the plan was nearly flawless. Of course, it could go wrong, but still. Any degree of control in selecting a new host was a blessing.

It would take time, yes; after all shipping wasn't fast. An overnight package might arouse more suspicion, after all. But still, it would only be a matter of time before the box arrived and someone picked up the coin, and from there getting it to the slayer would be easy, even if there were delays. After all, what were a few months or years to an Angel?


	3. Chapter 3

I grimaced as I yawned tiredly. For the past few weeks I'd been having… strange dreams, to say the least. They weren't quite as bad as what I'd come to know as 'Slayer Dreams,' but they were enough that I wasn't getting much sleep, even for a slayer. Maybe they were just stress.

I sighed and turned back to my cereal and poked at it half-heartedly. I suppose it didn't really matter, I'd gotten in funks like this before, but eventually they passed without me doing anything. I suppose I could ask Giles about it.

"Aren't you going to open your gift?" I blinked as my mother's voice snapped me out of my mope.

"Gift?"

"Well, it's your Birthday this weekend, but you've seemed a little down, so… Anyway, I saw you looking at this other day, Buffy, and, well, Happy birthday." Joyce smiled at me as she handed me a small, well wrapped, gift.

"Looking at this? What…" I couldn't think of, well, anything I'd looked at recently. In side the box was the coin we'd been sent last week. Not quite what I'd been expecting, but I can't deny it had been on my mind.

"I thought this was for the Gallery?" I looked up at my mother questioningly.

"Well, it was, but I saw you looking at it and, well, it's pretty. I thought you might like to have it."

"Aw, thanks." I got up and hugged her.

She was right: it was pretty. Not necessarily the sort of thing I'd usually wear, but still, pretty. Besides, we were tight on money since the divorce, and this was better than I'd expected.

I picked up the coin and looked at it more closely and frowned at it. I'd thought it was a necklace but there was no hole to thread a chain through. That was a let down. Oh well. The coin itself was cold to the touch, but seemed to warm quickly. Silver, I thought. It was pretty much how I remembered it. A little battered disk of tarnished silver struck with a face I didn't recognize.

At some point someone had carved an interesting looking symbol over it. I'd tried to look the symbol up in one of Giles books after I'd seen the coin, but hadn't found anything. Besides, if it were something dangerous I'm sure it'd set off my spidey-sense. They're not perfect, but they're pretty reliable about the big things. At least they have been so far.


	4. Chapter 4

My Birthday had passed without incident, and with it the dreams that had been bothering me. It took me a few days to figure out what I wanted to do with the coin. Eventually I'd hit on the idea of wrapping it in a leather thong I'd dug up at the back of one of my drawers and smiled. Finding a way to wear the coin without putting a hole in it hadn't been easy, but I figured this would do. It was still too nice for every day wear, especially if I was going out slaying, but now at least it would do more than gather dust on my dresser.

It wasn't perfect, after all, I didn't have anything to wear it with, true, but there wasn't anywhere to wear it to in Sunnydale, so it was a bit of a moot point for now. I'd bring it with me when I went back to LA over the summer to see dad. After all, I should be able to guilt a few shopping sprees out of him.

*****

Azshariel's Shadow frowned as it looked around the barren desert that was the Slayer's mindscape. It hadn't expected something like this: that the Slayer Spirit would have such a strong grip on its host. After all, she'd been called less than a year ago; a bond like this should take longer to form. Still, so far it had escaped the spirit's notice as it slowly took root. It could not afford to make its move, not ye. Unless, of course, the Slayer took up the coin of her own free will.

Still, it was here, and it had a foothold that would only grow stronger. Besides, it thought idly, Slayers lead dangerous lives. Eventually Buffy would find herself in danger or a moment of weakness and Azshariel could strike. It would take time, true, but, what were a few months to a fallen angel?


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next few months Sunnydale was surprisingly quiet, for what it was. We still had our ups and downs, but I'd come to realize that Sunnydale was always going to be outside the norm. Even in LA in the months after I'd been called there had been nothing like what was becoming a regular day in Sunnydale. Vampires sure, but demonic internet stalkers? Not so much. Still, life didn't seem so bad if I just lay back and went with it.

Well, maybe that wasn't quite true. Honestly, being the Slayer was becoming a bigger and bigger problem. Late nights and frequent fights were bringing my grades down and starting to reignite tensions with my mom. We'd moved to Sunnydale to get away from the problems, at least in her mind, and seeing them reappear wasn't… well, lets just say it wasn't good.

I'd taken to wearing the coin she'd given me for my birthday whenever I could, usually along side Angel's cross. It was a little fancier than what I'd normally wear, but some how it worked as a beacon of normality in the chaos that had become my life. The dreams hadn't come back since then, either. But it was May now, and the year was winding to a close. As long as it didn't end like last year had, with fire and vampire-badness, I could call it a success.

Still, that was becoming more of a stretch. There had been more and more vampires lately, and other things; the world was far from perfect. But, it wasn't as bad as it could be. Last night I'd staked three of them, a new record for a standard patrol. Giles seemed pretty blasé about it, but, he wasn't the one out there. I could handle it, but if it didn't get better soon I'd be in trouble. I might not need a whole lot of sleep, but I did need time to study.

And… now the tap was running blood. Just perfect. If TV was to be believed there were two possibilities. Either someone had stuffed a body in the water tank, something that I found surprisingly likely, or the end was near. Funny how neither of those were too unexpected.

"Giles, you're not going to believe this," I muttered as I ducked into the library.

"There's gotta be some way around it!"

Huh, that was Angel. I stopped outside the door and listened in. After all, it's not every day you get a chance to spy on your Watcher and your Boyfriend having a serious talk.

"Listen, some prophecies are a bit dodgy, they're mutable. Buffy herself has thwarted them time and time again. But this is the codex! There is nothing in it that does not come to pass!"

"Then you're reading it wrong."

"I wish to god I were! But it's very plain. Tomorrow night, Buffy will face the Master. And she will die."

… Well fuck.


End file.
